Women's basketball: FGCU tops Lipscomb, sets up showdown with Stetson

Florida Gulf Coast University's two-time defending Atlantic Sun champion women ripped through the final prep for Friday night's home showdown with Stetson with a 67-37 home win over Lipscomb in front of 1,492 home fans on Monday night.

Coupled with Stetson's 62-39 home win against Northern Kentucky, it set up the already long-awaited first showdown between the Eagles and Hatters, both 8-0 in A-Sun play. The teams will tip off at Alico Arena at 7:05 Saturday in a game to be televised by Comcast Sports Southeast.

"Now we can talk about it," FGCU junior all-conference forward Sarah Hansen said. "The rivalry with us and Stetson has been there. They're undefeated, we're undefeated, so it should be a good game.

"Hopefully we come out with intensity and get the crowd going for us."

FGCU (15-5) has ripped through its eight conference foes by an average of 26 points.

Against Lipscomb (2-15, 1-6), a team that has never beaten the Eagles, Monday night was more of the same.

But it took a while.

FGCU, which came in third nationally with nine 3-point makes per game, lofted more air balls than a bubble wand. The flustered Eagles made only 4 of 28 attempts from behind the arc in building just a 26-18 lead at intermission. A persistent problem, FGCU was slow to get into its zone offense.

"We came out slow, came out dead," said Hansen, who had 11 points and a game-high nine rebounds. "There's nothing really to it. We weren't executing what we wanted to do, then we weren't hitting shots, which usually gets us going. We weren't making the plays we usually do defensively. The intensity just wasn't there."

Asked if FGCU coach Karl Smesko was furious at the half, Hansen grinned.

"You can imagine," she said. "He's all about the little things. It's the little things that make us successful, and we weren't doing it in the first half. We didn't play exactly the way we play in the second half, but it was an improvement."

The Eagles snapped out of their funk in the second half, looking much more like the program that has won 26 straight A-Sun games. The Eagles made their first four second-half 3-point attempts — three by senior Joyce Iamstrong, who had a team-high 12 points — and dominated inside as well to quickly shove the lead to 46-24 with 14:40 left to play. Suddenly, the Eagles were aggressive, efficient and on their marks and they cruised from there.

FGCU made 7 of its 22 3-point attempts in the second half and forced 21 turnovers while giving up just 10. The best scoring defense in the A-Sun held Lipscomb to just 30 percent from the field and 13.6 percent behind the arc.

Smesko, whose neck veins were easily spotted throughout that almost inexplicable first half, was relieved, and miffed, afterward.

"We shot the ball very poorly and our zone offense execution was just nonexistent," Smesko said. "We threw it exactly the opposite of where we were supposed to pass it. And it was more of our experienced kids who should know better. I give Lipscomb some credit, they out-hustled us for some balls and they were really working to get out on our shooters.

"But our offensive pace is going to have to be double that to get off good shots."